Palm picks new pilot to run company
Then-Executive Chairman Jon Rubinstein holds up the Pre at CES 2009.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)This post was updated with more background information on Palm and at 3:10 p.m. PDT with analyst comment.
Palm announced Wednesday afternoon that Jon Rubinstein will become the new chairman and CEO of the smartphone maker. Ed Colligan will step down as Palm's chief after 16 years with the company.
Rubinstein joined Palm as executive chairman in October 2007 and will take over as CEO on June 12. Colligan will take some time off, then join Elevation Partners, the private equity firm that has a 25 percent stake in Palm. Rubinstein's appointment now appears to explain why it was him and venture capitalist and Palm backer Roger McNamee who showed off the Pre at last month's D: All Things Digital event.
In a press release issued by Palm, Rubinstein said, "I am very excited about taking on this expanded role at Palm. Ed and I have worked very hard together the past two years, and I'm grateful to him for everything he's done to help set the company up for success."
Colligan's departure means Palm is severing one of the last remaining ties to the company's days as a pioneer of the handheld market. As an early employee of Palm, Colligan left with Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins to form Handspring and returned when Palm bought Handspring in 2003. Colligan became CEO later, after Todd Bradley resigned in 2005.
Rubinstein is a former Apple executive, and retired as the head of the company's iPod division in 2005. Now, he takes over Palm right as the company begins to mount a comeback in the smartphone category by staking its Pre device directly against Apple's popular iPhone. The Pre was first introduced in January, but finally went on sale last Saturday.
Reviews of the Pre have been good, the general consensus being that it's a fine alternative to the iPhone. But while Pre sales have broken records at Sprint, the phone's exclusive carrier, they're low when compared to Apple's initial sales of the iPhone in previous years.
For many industry observers, Rubinstein's appointment was not a surprise.
"This had been a strange (management) relationship for quite a while," analyst Michael Gartenberg said. "It has been clear to most observers that Jon has been calling the shots for quite some time. This just formalizes it. It was very clear Palm's investors had brought Rubinstein in to run the company."
Palm's stock rose slightly, 2.25 percent to $12.26, in after-hours trading on the news.
CNET News' Ina Fried contributed to this report.
Erica Ogg is a CNET News reporter who covers Apple, HP, Dell, and other PC makers, as well as the consumer electronics industry. She's also one of the hosts of CNET News' Daily Podcast. In her non-work life, she's a history geek, a loyal Dodgers fan, and a mac-and-cheese connoisseur. E-mail Erica. 
Palm is aiming it's device at a different audience
although they'll be competing with Apple too
they'll also be competing agaisnt all those dumb phones , which are still the majority
plus there's RIM's blackberry line which although great for business use
isnt that great for web related stuff
then there s WinMo devices which have bloated feature sets but lack refinement !
plus to counter the iphone the pre has a real keyboard, some people like that{I don't mind either}
eitherway like I said in my post there's room for everybody !
Jon Rubinstein is Apple's former hardware head. during his tenure, he worked on the iMac, and iPod.
good luck to palm and Rubenstein with all their new Web O.S devices
and I'm pretty sure that even palm wasn't expecting the palm pre to sell as well as the iphone
infact why compete with apple in the first place ,
70% of all phones sold are still dumb phones
there's place for everybody
the race has only just started now ,
and with a visionary like Rubinstein at the helm I'm sure Palm will innovate as well as anybody else
This is such a golden time for Apple.
It should have been marketed as a "WMo killer", and that would have been an easy battle for Palm.
Do not compete against the market leader directly. Try to become #2 first.
The whole make it up in volume arguement is one of the things that GM got in trouble for in the first place.
And what makes these Apple-trolls think Pre ver. 1.0 is all you are going to see from Palm and Web OS.
This is only the beginning.
BTW...every very Pro-Apple reviewer that used the Pre was blown away by the OS/UI and stated that Palm has raised the bar. And best of all it isn`t part of Apple`s Walled-Garden.
Did you hear about the $200 iPhone 3G S upgrade fee ? Bwahahahaha ! That`s Apple for you.
I am not a huge Apple everything fan, but your constantly trying to point out things that are untrue just because you dont like Apple is absolutely absurd.
First off its an fee that anyone on any network anywhere in the US would have to pay if they upgraded their SUBSIDIZED phone before their contract period ended. It has NOTHING to do with Apple and everything to do with AT&T, and the cell phone industry in general.
Go buy a Pre with their Subsidy and try to buy a new one a year later (into your two year contract) and see if you get the discounted price.
- by rdean June 14, 2009 10:09 AM PDT
- The Palm Eos is rumored to be arriving on AT&T and Sprint later this year. Based on the pictures, it's definitely going to be the replacement for Centro, and as such, I would expect it to be the $99 device.
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